Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump
In response to the Trump administration’s disinformation-and-discredit campaign, The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, has released the full Signal chat at the center of the growing national security scandal. National security experts and other analysts and experts, after reviewing the exchange, are sharply rejecting the administration’s efforts to downplay the severity of the breach. Many assert that, contrary to official claims, classified information was clearly shared by unsecured means—violating established protocols, internal policy, and potentially federal law.
The Trump administration and its Republican allies have been waging a disinformation campaign and pushing back against the credibility of The Atlantic and its editor-in-chief, after he revealed on Monday that he had been inadvertently added to a group text chat on Signal that took place over a number of days and involved the planning of a military strike against a terrorist group in Yemen.
The use of what has been called an unsecured chat on the messaging app Signal, likely on private, not government phones, while various members of the 18-person group were traveling overseas, including in Moscow, constitutes extreme violations of accepted national security practices, experts say. The conversations should have been held via secure communications, inside a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF).
The president, the White House press secretary, the director of national intelligence, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, the secretary of defense, and other officials — along with top Republican lawmakers and right wing media outlets—have all claimed that information in the Signal chat was not classified.
In sworn testimony on Tuesday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of the CIA both insisted none of the information shared in the Signal chat was classified.
Experts disagree.
“The information Secretary of Defense Hegseth disclosed in the Signal chat was classified at the time he wrote it, especially because the operation had not even started yet, according to a US defense official and another source who was briefed on the operation,” CNN Pentagon and national security correspondent Natasha Bertrand reported.
“It is safe to say that anybody in uniform would be court martialed for this,” the official said, according to Bertrand. “We don’t provide that level of information on unclassified systems, in order to protect the lives and safety of the servicemembers carrying out these strikes. If we did, it would be wholly irresponsible. My most junior analysts know not to do this.”
Barbara Starr, the iconic correspondent who covered the Pentagon on CNN for two decades, focused on National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, who admitted he set up the chat and inadvertently included Goldberg. She wrote:
“Waltz revealed an extraordinary detail when he said there was intel showing the top Houthi missile guy walked into a building. You only know that if you have overhead surveillance, comms intercepts, or an operative on the ground. It means the US had ‘pattern of life’ surveillance. How is that not classified?”
NBC News senior congressional reporter Scott Wong reports that two House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Republicans are denouncing the Trump administration’s handling of Signalgate.
“The White House is in denial that this was not classified or sensitive data. They should just own up to it and preserve credibility,” Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) said.
After reviewing the Signal text chain, Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN) “said he is concerned about Hegseth sending this detailed information over the messaging app,” Wong also reported.
DesJarlais, chairman of the HASC subcommittee on strategic forces said: “It should have never happened and must not happen again.”
Joseph J. Collins is a retired U.S. Army colonel, professor of national security strategy at the National War College, and former deputy assistant secretary of defense for stability operations. He currently leads the Center for Complex Operations at the National Defense University.
Dr. Collins, responding to Starr’s remarks, wrote: “Important point … this fiasco compromised or potentially compromised sources and methods, possibly including our agents and stringers on the ground.”
Veteran, activist, and Amherst College political science lecturer Paul Rieckhoff declared: “Hegseth must step down or be removed. Any member of the Department of Defense that did this would be in prison. There is no way someone that did this can lead our military as SecDef. And even he knows it.”
“Everyone on this chat probably has to go. Everyone. They all know the rules,” he continued. “Loose lips sink ships. Everyone who’s ever served knows that line. It’s OPSEC 101 that every Private learns in Basic Training. And a f— up like this could have cost American lives. There is no spinning it. Hegseth’s got to go.”
“We can’t have a SecDef who doesn’t follow the same rules and standard he’s expected to hold for millions at DoD,” Rieckhoff added. “There’s no wiggle room. Stakes are too high. Our troops lives depend on it. And our enemies are celebrating.”
Former Transportation Secretary and veteran Pete Buttigieg is one of a handful of top Democrats who have been vociferously contesting the administration’s claims. Based on his extensive military and high-level of government service, late Wednesday he simply wrote: “Well, they lied. Obviously.”
Former CIA lawyer Brian Greer posted screenshots from The Atlantic’s report, and the regulations surrounding what is classified information. He wrote: “This is all very plainly classified at the SECRET level. They all lied. They should all lose their jobs.”
Apparently referencing Tuesday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing during which the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe testified, claiming there was no classified information shared, Greer wrote: “There was quite a bit of perjury yesterday.”
See his social media posts below or at this link.
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
- The Atlantic releases the entire Signal chat showing Hegseth's ... ›
- Signal Atlantic leak: The part of the Hegseth chat I can't get out of my ... ›
- Veteran Dem senator demands Hegseth resign over Signal chat leak ›
- Trump officials shrugging off Signal leak once decried Clinton's ... ›
- Signal Leak Is Latest Mistake in Pete Hegseth's Rocky Time as ... ›
- Congress erupts over Trump admin's Signal leak: "Heads should roll" ›
Start your day with National Memo Newsletter
Know first.
The opinions that matter. Delivered to your inbox every morning
David Paul Daniel
One man granted clemency by President Donald Trump for laying siege to the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 is now hoping that his pardon will be extended to a separate charge for possession of child pornography.
Politico legal correspondent Kyle Cheney tweeted Wednesday that the legal counsel for 37 year-old David Paul Daniel of North Carolina is now arguing in federal court that his client's child pornography charge should be thrown out based on what he admitted was an "unprecedented legal question."
In the 14-page filing submitted to U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina, attorney William Terpening asserted that Trump's January 20 executive order pardoning the approximately 1,500 people charged in connection with January 6 also covers Daniel's alleged possession of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) due to how it was obtained by law enforcement.
According to Terpening, when police executed a search warrant on Daniel's property and subsequently found an iPhone and a laptop that contained images of a "nude minor female," they were doing so as part of the January 6 charge. He then posited that because Trump pardoned his client for the January 6 charge, the other "derivative" charges that were brought about as a result of the initial charge should be automatically dismissed.
"A pardon completely exonerates a person — it is as if the conviction that is pardoned was never prosecuted in the first instance," Terpening wrote. "The expansive effect of Trump’s Executive Order in erasing not only Mr. Daniel’s January 6 crime, but also any basis for prosecuting it in the first instance, is apparent from the Executive Order’s plain text, which describes the DC Case as 'a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years' ... The Order’s intent is undisputedly to convey that the DC Case had no legal basis."
Terpening further argued that the Trump administration's Department of Justice has intervened on behalf of other January 6 defendants facing separate charges that were brought about as a result of January 6-related search warrants. The filing noted that in the case of Capitol rioter Elias Costianes — who had illegal weapons seized at his home following the execution of the initial search warrant — the Trump DOJ clarified in federal court that Trump's pardon extended to the gun charge.
Additionally, January 6 defendant Jeremy Brown, who was convicted on both possession of illegal weapons and classified information from his time in the U.S. military, also had his other charges thrown out. Terpening also attempted to bolster his case by looping in the case of Daniel Ball, who was arrested on federal gun charges just one day after Trump handed down his pardon, but later had those charges dismissed by the DOJ.
"Although the crimes with which Costianes, Ball, and Brown were charged in Maryland and Florida were unrelated to their January 6 charges, the government concluded that the Executive Order required their dismissal because they were based on information discovered by the government during January 6 related searches," Terpening wrote. "Mr. Daniel’s pardon in the DC Case requires dismissal of the unrelated charges in this case because the evidence allegedly supporting the instant charges was discovered during a January 6 related search."
Reprinted with permission from Alternet.
- New Inspector General's Report Debunks January 6 Conspiracy Theories ›
- Oath Keepers Sent Promise Of Violence To Trump After January 6 ›
- Flashback: What Mike Johnson Said As Mob Stormed Capitol On January 6 (VIDEO) ›
- Police Unions Enraged By Trump's January 6 Pardons As Republicans Defend Them ›
- How Trump's January 6 Pardons Have Already Emboldened Violent Extremists ›
- Trump Pardons January 6 Felons -- Including Thugs Who Brutalized Police ›
